Baby Priya’s law: New protections for employer funded parental leave
Published 7 November 2025
New protections apply to employer funded paid parental leave in the event of stillbirth or the death of a child.
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Overview
The Australian Government has introduced additional protections for employer funded paid parental leave as part of the Fair Work Amendment (Baby Priya’s Bill) Act 2025.
These changes ensure that employees planning to take, or who are receiving, employer funded paid parental leave can’t have this leave refused or cancelled if their child is stillborn or dies. These changes don’t apply if an employee requests to cancel the leave or an exception applies.
What's changed
The Fair Work Act has been changed to prohibit an employer from refusing or cancelling employer funded paid parental leave for an employee because that employee’s child is stillborn or dies. This applies if both:
- the employee would have been entitled to the leave under their terms and conditions of employment if their child had not been stillborn or died
- the leave is associated with the birth of an employee’s child or the child of an employee’s spouse or de facto partner, or the placement of a child with the employee for adoption.
This protection applies where a child is stillborn or dies on or after 7 November 2025.
The employer can only refuse or cancel the leave because of the stillbirth or death if an exception applies, or if the employee has requested that the leave be cancelled.
Employers who breach this protection could face civil penalties.
Exceptions
This protection doesn’t apply if any of the following exceptions apply.
Right to cancel employer funded paid parental leave
The protection doesn’t apply if an employer can refuse or cancel employer funded paid parental leave because of stillbirth or the death of a child under the employee’s terms and conditions of employment, such as an employment contract or enterprise agreement.
However, this exception doesn’t apply if the terms and conditions are varied by the employer after 7 November 2025 to allow this.
No entitlement under terms and conditions of employment
The protection doesn’t apply if an employee isn’t entitled to employer funded paid parental leave because of stillbirth or the death of a child under the terms and conditions of their employment.
However, this exception doesn’t apply if their terms and conditions are varied by the employer after 7 November 2025 to this effect.
Other leave entitlements apply
The protection doesn’t apply if an employee is entitled to other forms of leave related to stillbirth or the death of a child under their terms and conditions of employment.
When working out whether this exception applies, the other forms of leave that might be relevant don’t include an employee’s entitlement to compassionate leave or unpaid parental leave under the National Employment Standards (NES), or an entitlement under their terms and conditions of employment with the same or substantially the same effect as those NES entitlements.
More information
These changes don’t require employers to introduce employer funded paid parental leave if they don’t already provide it.
A similar protection already applies to periods of unpaid parental leave under the Fair Work Act.
Find more information at Stillbirth, premature birth or infant death.
We're updating the information on our website to reflect this change, more information will be available soon.
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